Toronto,
October 28, 2011 - Today, it was
announced at the Commonwealth Heads of
Government Meeting in Perth, Australia, that
Canada has agreed to the revision of some of
the monarchy's discriminatory rules of royal
succession.

Representing Canada's republican movement,
Citizens for a Canadian Republic (CCR)
welcomes any attempt to remove
discrimination everywhere, but notes that
the Commonwealth initiative is seriously
flawed.

For one thing, removing the 300 year-old
restriction on members of the royal family
from marrying a Catholic, but retaining the
rule forbidding the reigning monarch from
being one, does not go far enough.
Eligibility to become Canadian head of state
based on one's religious affiliation still
runs contrary to the Charter of Rights and
Freedoms, which bans any kind of
discrimination based on faith.

Also, the need to promote "human rights" and
"gender equality" is far from being the real
motivation for disallowing preference for
males over females in the line of
succession. The urgency is solely a
politically-motivated reaction to the
massive, publicly-funded PR campaign
surrounding the recent royal wedding and
Canadian tour, and the immediate possibility
of children being born from that marriage.

Furthermore, because all proposed changes
only affect members of an exclusive,
aristocratic family based in a foreign
country, they do absolutely nothing to
improve the rights of any Canadian citizen,
whatever their religion or sex may be.
Millions of qualified Canadian citizens are
still discriminated against because they are
systematically excluded from the process by
which our head of state is chosen. In a
supposedly democratic and independent
nation, this is totally unacceptable.

"Regardless of the changes," says CCR
spokesperson Tom Freda, "the suggestion that
monarchy can become an 'equal opportunities
employer’ is ridiculous."

"A 'modernized monarchy' is a classic
oxymoron," he adds. "It's still an out-dated
institution based on feudal values, foreign
to that of contemporary Canada."

~ End ~

ABOUT
CITIZENS FOR A CANADIAN REPUBLIC

Canada's republican movement, Citizens for a Canadian Republic
advocates a parliamentary republic by ending our
constitutional link to the British monarchy. More information is available at CCR’s
website.